


little fox (善狐)

by caffeineforum



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Based on Ghost of Tsushima, Boys Being Boys, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Comfort/Angst, Confident Lee Felix (Stray Kids), Developing Friendships, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Japan, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Kamakura Period, M/M, Mongolian Invasion, No Smut, Refugees, Romantic Fluff, Self-Discovery, Sexual Tension, Shinto, Shy Yang Jeongin | I.N, Soft Kim Seungmin, Supernatural Elements, Trauma, War, i forgot that tag but i swear this is actually just soft and gay please i promise, this is softer than the tags make it seem
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-18 09:02:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29980527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caffeineforum/pseuds/caffeineforum
Summary: “You must be blessed,” Felix comments off-handedly. “To look like a fox and have them adore you.”On temple grounds, hidden in a forest of shining gold, Jeongin meets an aspiring poet named Seungmin and a sandy-haired boy who seems to be something far greater than he lets on.Alternatively; Seungmin is beautiful, Felix is an anomaly, and Jeongin is a little too foxlike for it to be normal.
Relationships: Kim Seungmin/Yang Jeongin | I.N, Lee Felix/Yang Jeongin | I.N
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	little fox (善狐)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY WOW HELLO I'VE BEEN GONE A WHILE. Between my anthropology and political assignments I have been playing Ghost of Tsushima again and felt very inspired to write this... don't worry though, you don't need to know anything about the game for this! It just uses the setting.
> 
> Anyways, some housekeeping: Firstly, I know 善狐 means "good fox" and not "little fox", but I just prefer the latter as the English title. Also because this has some coming-of-age elements so I don't think the full meaning of 善狐 really applies to Jeongin here. Secondly, I don't hate Mongols, this just takes place during the first Mongolian Invasion from the perspective of a young Japanese boy. Thirdly, lets just pretend Jeongin/Seungmin/Minho fit in with Japanese names... let's just pretend... Also, as for the chronic pain and illness tags, they are not a focal point of the story and they are left vague because Jeongin, the main character, does not experience them firsthand. This is not a story about those things but one of the characters is known to suffer from something, but is undiagnosed because, you know, feudalism. 
> 
> SLIGHT TRIGGER WARNING: There is the tiniest, most miniscule elusion to illicit relationships between adults and minors. It is not explicitly mentioned and you probably won't catch it, but for those who are aware of certain samurai practices during the Kamakura period, it is referenced. 
> 
> With all that out of the way, here we go!

Jeongin doesn’t know what to think, what to say, as the caravan pulls up to the Golden Temple. The gates are guarded by men with swords, but their armor is poor and they are maskless. Not samurai. He doesn’t know what to make of it all.

There’s a tenseness to the air; he swears he’s imagining it. Past the walls, everyone seems… content. Children are running around and up to the horses like nothing’s wrong. The sun is hot even as it filters through the endless sea of bright, golden leaves, and the sky is cloudless. Like any normal day in a beautiful village, before everything fell.

A delusional state of peace, he thinks. No one here is safe. The walls are short, the guards unskilled against warriors. They’ve been sent to be sitting ducks. He’s so sure of it.

“Jeongin, my boy,” his mother calls, and he snaps out of a daze to see everyone climbing off the cart. She smiles at him, awkwardly and forced. “Let’s go, they’re going to show us around the temple. We have a room in one of the towers.”

Dutiful as ever, he obeys.

His mind is elsewhere as they’re shown around. They meet every maiden and monk, and all the merchants. Even the one who is training other boys and girls who look Jeongin’s age how to use a bow. His mom not-so-subtly nudges him to take interest--he had to leave his bow behind, after all--but he can’t bring himself to show any inclination towards the opportunity. She’s the one who apologizes for his apparent disinterest.

“Most of us are quiet when we get here,” the bowyer says with a smile. “I’m Minho.”

“I’m Hyojin.” Her grin is wide as she places her hands around Jeongin’s shoulders. “This is my son, Jeongin. He shows a lot of potential in archery! He had a bow, back home.”

“Well, then I wouldn’t mind teaching you sometime. I’m here almost every day so don’t be afraid to stop by, okay?”

Casual. Not like a proper teacher at all, more like someone passing on their hobby just for fun. Somehow, despite the kindness, Minho doesn’t seem the type to forgo discipline or proper training. If Jeongin’s thoughts weren’t so muddied, he might take up the offer immediately.

But it takes an awful lot of effort for him to muster a small smile and nod.

A few minutes of talking pass in a fog, until suddenly he’s bowing and turning away with their group again to be led to a tower. Each floor is apparently a communal room. The elderly and the injured at the bottom, then the young and spry in the levels above.

They climb two ladders to their room, the last to be filled. There’s sixteen narrow futons, one for each of them along with a small box for any belongings. For those that were able to grab any. In Jeongin’s sack, there’s only his journal and a sun-engraved charm, alongside a second set of clothing. He didn’t have time to grab any of his books as the smoke began to rise.

Everything seems to happen is a singular, rapid blur. The tour, prayers, the dinner they’re served… It’s nothing much, just rice and fowl. There’s not much taste to it, probably because his senses feel confined in his mind, unwilling to make use of themselves. He’s offered sake, and his mother turns it away before he can shake his head. 

Physically, Jeongin’s body goes through it all languidly, but his mind is a whirlwind of nothingness. Nothing happens and nothing matters. The sun descends, they’re given extra clothing to sleep in, and the man who guided them here disappears after mingling with the bowyer--Minho--they’d met earlier.

Hyojin, bless her heart, drags him through it all. Speaks for him. Apologizes for him. He can see clearly he’s dampening her optimism with every half-hearted nod and hum; he can’t help it. There’s nothing for him here, nothing left back home for him either. She gets flashed looks of sympathy, and he’s given ones of pity. One of interest that he notes, too, from a boy whose name he doesn’t catch and who has eyes like a baby animal. His interest gets lost in the fog of Jeongin’s thoughts, though.

The golden leaves that fill the air and ground and sky… they aren’t much different than the ashes and smoke. It just makes for nicer scenery, but the colour can’t keep solemnity masked as serenity for very long. Not from Jeongin’s scrutiny, at least. Everyone else seems to be either fooled, or in denial.

“There’s a shrine called Golden Summit just to the south of here.” He watches Hyojin fold his clothes, setting aside the worn cloth for laundry and putting his somewhat-wrinkled indigo kosode, his one good hitatare… judging by the look on her face, she’ll probably sew him new clothes. He lost most of his matching sets, there was just no time to grab them. “It’s a shrine to Amaterasu, you should visit it.”

“Is it safe to leave the walls?” he mumbles, the first thing he’s said all day. The way Hyojin’s head whips upwards to look at him makes him almost choke on his tea, the rim of the cup knocking his teeth. Her smile, the genuine one, is worth the shock.

“They say there’s no Mongols between here and the shrine,” she says. Her eyes flicker around the common room. No one seems to notice her mention of  _ them _ . “They make sure the area is clear for those that want to leave for a bit, or to go pray.”

Maybe, if he takes up Minho’s offer, he’ll hunt in the forest. He’s not sure if the Golden Forest will have anything useful to hunt that would be small enough for him to manage, though he guesses the fowl they ate early couldn’t come from too far away. Maybe there are wild pigs, even on the south side of the island. Maybe if he perches in a tree, he could best a bear. His aim isn’t half-bad, he could nail one in the eye.

Or he could just wander. That would be nice, too. No bustling, no one trying to be his friend, no doting mother, no priests. Peace and quiet. No war.

“...Can I leave often, if I want?” Jeongin looks down at his tea. He’s not sure why people like it so much. It tastes like grass to him, but it helps him sleep, at least. 

“Whatever will make you happy, dear.” Hyojin says cheerfully. Slightly exaggerated to be encouraging. His mother can’t fake her feelings to him. “If you’re ever in trouble, just follow the foxes. They’ll always protect you.”

Not enough, he thinks. They don’t protect him enough.

* * *

Days, maybe weeks, go by without a single entry in Jeongin’s journal. 

Hyojin gets along well with everyone, as to be expected from her. She helps out at the small temple and helps the swordsmith carry in supplies when the carts come. Every odd job she can do, she does to keep herself busy. There’s no money to be made, but she leaves for a day to pluck herbs and flowers from the forest, and trades them to the travelling merchant who stops by in exchange for two matching protection charms.

Now Jeongin has two--his pendant to Amaterasu, and a small prayer he loops around the rope he uses to tie his robe, since there wasn’t enough time to grab his sash. Life seems keen on remaining uneventful otherwise. It would be lying to say he isn’t thankful for the return to calm, even if nothing is truly the same anymore.

He prays, he eats, he sleeps, and he meanders within the walls. Watching Minho’s lessons from the raised path around one of the towers, never joining. Amidst this, the baby-eyed boy named Seungmin takes more interest in him, and pesters him to no end.

Making friends isn’t on his agenda whatsoever, but he procrastinates on visiting the shrine to the south, so it was only a matter of time before he attracted some unwanted, unwarranted company.

“Before we came here, my mother was an attendant of the Jito,” he brags on his second day of bothering Jeongin, legs swinging off the edge of the walkway near the bowyer’s station while Jeongin’s own stay still. “She copied down a lot of the poetry he read into this book for me. Do you want me to read some to you?”

“I don’t understand poetry,” Jeongin admits. He watches Minho show two girls how to position their arms. One of them is dressed rather immodestly, and he can see her biceps are large. No one seems to care about being proper here, though. “I write little haikus in my journal, sometimes. I don’t understand other people’s poems.”

Seungmin hums in understanding. Even Jeongin doesn’t look at him much, he knows he always has a slight smile. An air of innocence and happiness. He’s one of the few around here who doesn’t seem to be forcing it, likely because he’s young like Jeongin. “When I’m bored, I like to sit somewhere nice and write a haiku about what I see.”

The muscular girl fires her shot, and lands it right in the eye of the target. He mumbles some words haphazardly, paying more attention to the syllables than their meaning. By the end he doesn’t even remember what he says, but the boy next to him looks content.

“Like that, yeah,” Seungmin says. “Not bad for your first time. You should practice with me.”

“I think I want to start practicing archery, again.” Why Jeongin shares this, he doesn’t know, but he likes that Seungmin is encouraging him because he wants to, not like he has to. No one forced Seungmin to latch onto him like a leech from a pond. Here he is, anyways. “I miss it.”

“Why did you stop?”

“I haven’t touched a bow since our village was attacked and we came here.” The time is ripe for oversharing. The other girl, who is thinner than even his mom and shakes like the leaves fluttering around them, fires her shot. She wobbles, but hits within the middle circle of the target. He hears Minho congratulate her. “There was no time to grab my bow, my mother shoved some clothes into a sack and dragged me out as soon as the Mongols were heard closing in. I only have my diary because I was writing in it when they came.”

“Oh.” Jeongin looks up, and Seungmin looks stoic from the confession. “At the castle, we had a little more time to grab our things because the guards could hold the Mongols off for a while. I can’t imagine being in a village with no walls. Luckily I don’t have much either, just a few books.”

“Really? You don’t even have a small weapon just in case?” Jeongin blinks, feeling his own short, straight blade against his thigh. It never left him, from the moment they received word of the Mongolian victory at Komoda Beach what feels like forever ago.

“I’ve been sick ever since I was small,” Seungmin explains. He rolls up the sleeve of his white dobuku, almost comically oversized, and shows how thin and pale his arms are. Jeongin can see his veins, blue like the ocean water, without needing to peer closer. When he glances up at his face, he notices it’s nearly the colour of washed rice, if he ignores the golden hue the sun and leaves create over everything. “My mom never let me touch anything sharp because I get tired too easily. I know how to sew and cook, but I can’t even pick crops or carry crates.”

The contrast between him and the muscular girl cutting the air with her arrows is palpable. Everything really is different, now. No village, no roles to fill, nothing to conform to. It’s almost like a blessing, if he doesn’t dwell on the past. It could only be fate that a feminine boy like Seungmin, and masculine girl like the one training with Minho, could end up here.

It only makes Jeongin more confused, how someone frail could be in service of the Jito himself, even as a child. Castle life was about conformity, and Seungmin physically couldn’t. “What did you do at the castle, then?” 

“I helped make tea, and I played the biwa too, at ceremonies or even just gatherings.” He moves his fingers, as if plucking invisible strings. A poet and a musician, it suits him. The shaggy wisps of his bangs make him seem less aristocratic anyhow, even in their current predicament. “What did you do in your village?”

Jeongin remembers when everything was green, and not yellow. When the rushing river was where he could dip his toes, and he would reach out to dragonflies that perched awkwardly on the tips of his fingers. There was a target pinned to a tree on the other side of the bank, and his father would practice archery with him there.

He tries to picture Seungmin, in his frailness, within the village. How everyone would care for him. For the first time since arriving, the blur in his head clears up, and he thinks he might start to cry. Minho fires his own shot, while describing his technique to the girls, and it reminds Jeongin too much of his father. Tears congregate on his waterline, and slick his lashes.

Jeongin doesn’t cry, though. 

He remembers the moss under his bare feet and dewy grass bending under the weight of his palms. All that time, he was the only boy his age. The others were practically still toddlers, and hardly literate. Boisterous, while he was quiet. A friend like Seungmin would have been nice to have. The girls were all older than him, too, and he felt silly whenever he tried talking to them.

“I was learning how to use the bow so I could hunt,” he says shakily, “and I helped carry water from the river. It wasn’t far, so my father and I would carry buckets to each house as soon as my shoulders were strong enough.”

Seungmin hums, and looks away respectfully when he sees Jeongin trying to push back his tears. That’s another thing Jeongin knows about him already; despite his insistence on friendship, Seungmin doesn’t push boundaries. “If I was a villager, I’d want to be a woodcutter.”

“Why?” Jeongin blurts. A doctor, maybe. Herbalist, absolutely. But manual labour? Off the table. Trying to picture him holding up an axe to the forest trees is almost comical. Theatrical, even.

“I’d want to be strong and resourceful.” He smiles up at the sky, wistfully. A simple, honest explanation. Nothing frivolous, Jeongin likes that, too. “I think if you were at the castle, you’d make a good shrine-keeper.”

Jeongin snorts. The charm around his neck dangles, as if in agreement with Seungmin, though the idea seems ridiculous. “I care about the gods, but I don’t think I could devote my entire life to serving a shrine.”

Devotion is something he believes less in after coming to the Golden Temple. He sees the women tending to the shrines day in, day out, espousing the tales of the gods. Although he admires them, he doesn’t feel any envy. There’s no moss under their feet, no grass under their palms.

“You just seem like the kind of person the gods would watch out for,” Seungmin explains, as simply and honestly as before. A lover of poetry who is plain with his words. Maybe Jeongin might understand the things he writes, unlike others, if he gets the chance to read them.“You look like a fox, and you’re weird like one. Maybe you’re a descendant of Inari!”

Despite the natural quietness of his voice, when Seungmin exclaims, Minho turns his head. He smiles at them and waves, before his attention is turned back to the girls, who are moving on to a farther target.

If Minho’s close to their age, maybe they should all be friends. He seems no-nonsense, too. 

“Foxes always guide me, and they’re never scared of me, so maybe.” Jeongin tries to replicate the honest bluntness of Seungmin’s way of speaking, but finds himself lacking the optimism laced within it. “I hope Inari isn’t disappointed in me, if I am.”

“Why would Inari be disappointed in you?” Seungmin shifts closer, and Jeongin nearly flinches. Nearly, because all things considered, he doesn’t mind the closeness, and doesn’t want to make Seungmin think he does. “Besides, I think if they were, the foxes would avoid you. Not protect you, if they actually do and you’re not exaggerating.”

He’s not. Far from it, really. Everywhere he goes, a fox seems to be lying in wait, and when he’s close enough, they appear and whine until he follows. He always ends up somewhere isolated, where a small treasure lies. Like his Amaterasu charm. Like a particularly nice stone. Like a shimmering pond, or a hot spring beneath a maple tree. They seem to spoil him, for some reason.

“You make a point,” is all he says. Humbleness is encouraged, so he’ll save the fox stories for if Seungmin cares enough to ever ask about them directly. For now, he rebounds the topic. “I think you would be Suiten’s descendant. Because you’re gentle like the river. And you’re feminine.”

He looks up when Seungmin takes a pause, and sees the frail boy quirk his eyebrow beneath his bangs that slowly shift in the breeze. He might have been an attendant, but he could pass for a young noble if he weren’t sickly. “Are you calling me pretty?”

If Jeongin flushes, it’s hidden by the golden hue of the world around them.

“Well, you act like how girls are expected to act, it doesn’t seem like you let anyone’s idea of what a boy should be affect you. From what I can tell. Like her, no one’s bothering her for being physically strong,” he rambles, turning his gaze to the archers again to hide his miniscule blush. Minho is an attractive man, too, he thinks. “You’re also pretty, though. Very pretty.”

When Seungmin giggles, it only serves to redden Jeongin’s cheeks.

“You’re really pretty too, Jeongin,” he says. Once again, simple and honest. No nonsense. Jeongin likes it, and likes his face just as much, apparently. “I like your eyes. Looking at you makes me want to write a poem about a boy who becomes a fox, and becomes friends with a frog.”

There’s so much wrong about this picture. Gold, not green. Feminine boys and masculine girls. Boys writing poems and making Jeongin blush, the flame under his skin smelling like ash and smoke all over again. The familiarity, however imagined, shocks him, and he panics. “Then write it, and you can ask one of the shrine-keepers to read it and tell you if it’s good.” He slides off the walkway and onto the stone path, looking uneasily between the archers and Seungmin. “Um, I need to go now, I’m sorry.”

“Jeongin?” Seungmin slides off too, legs shaking on the landing, and reaches out to touch Jeongin’s sleeve. “Is something wrong?” The slight pressure of his fingers reaches skin--that’s where it all goes wrong. Everyone knows you don’t pet a fox that doesn’t approach you first.

Sudden, all too sudden. Comfort, and then fear. Even though he can breathe it doesn’t feel like he can. How is he supposed to, anyways, when he’s never had a friend his age, let alone the sparks of a crush? On a purveyor of poetry, no less, from the fringes of aristocracy. Two things Jeongin has never known, and could never reach even if he wanted to.

It’s too much, too soon, so he only does what a fox does best.

He lifts the fabric of his new pants, slightly too big on him, and runs down towards the tower across the temple grounds. Seungmin, who tires too easily, can’t chase him, and his voice is too soft to break the air rushing past Jeongin’s ears. 

The leaves and the ashes are only different in colour. Like a timid fox, Jeongin runs to the safety of his den, away from the flames to slink underground and escape the rising smoke.

No one questions why he runs, maybe casting the odd glance around to make sure it’s just one person panicking and there’s no need to flee. The gossip will spread later and Hyojin will make a deal out of it. For now, he doesn’t care. He beelines to the temple and loops around the back to the small pond. Wanting--needing--even a slight reprieve from the heat on his face.

It feels good to run again.

Luckily, no one else has a similar idea. When he gets there it’s isolated, and the rumbling voices of the other refugees is blocked by the long stone building. His knees crash on the edge, staining the indigo fabric with green and brown. The leaves make a horrible crunching noise, but they always do. Under every step. You can’t be sneaky amidst the golden forest, at all.

Without hesitation, he dunks his cupped hands into the pond and splashes as much of the content as he can over his face. The water feels amazing on his skin. It’s pure, and clear. Jeongin even considers drinking some of it, momentarily. It drips off his bangs and leaves dark splotchy stains around his collar and sporadically down his torso.

It feels just like the river back home.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers to no one. There’s too much shade for his reflection to appear in the pond. 

He’s not meant to have a friend, really, and he’s not sure why he thought it would be a good idea to entertain the thought. Maybe if Seungmin was just a resourceful woodcutter from a distant village, things would be different. 

He plays the biwa, he writes poetry, he knows how to make tea and he can sew. Beautiful, wonderful, artistic things. He might not be an aristocrat, but he lived among them. And that leaves him so far out of Jeongin’s reach.

There’s longing in his chest that he can’t quite place. He slots Seungmin, the concept of a friend, so neatly into his memories. What if he could catch frogs with another person at his side? Have someone congratulate him for hitting the bullseye? Light the fire not just to boil water, but also to keep his frail body warm?

The image of his father at his side burns away, and a frail, sick boy takes his place. Jeongin’s never had reason to learn how to cling to the past, so it’s easy. He likes a lot of the things Seungmin does already, just not that. It shouldn’t be so easy.

He can hear the crunching of leaves getting closer, so he lies down on his side, facing the water. It’s coming from behind him, steady and purposeful. With each step, there’s a smaller noise that follows, and he’s not sure what that is, but he can guess who’s come after him.

Closer, closer. Even pressed into his arm, his ear to the ground catches all the bass while the ear to the sky collects the treble. The noise doesn’t halt until the feet stop behind him, and a body slowly sinks to its knees on the ground barely two feet away from him.

It’s silent for a while. Jeongin’s fingers trace the surface of the water, not ready to break it, yet.

“Did I offend you?” Seungmin eventually says, calculated. “Was it when I called you pretty, or when I mentioned being friends? Or something else?”

“Friends,” Jeongin answers, dipping his fingers into the cool blue. “I didn’t have a friend my age back at the village. I mean, I guess I had one, but he was my father, so I don’t know if it counts.”

Seungmin hums in consideration. “Did he play with you?” 

“Yes.”

“Did he listen to your complaints?”

“Always.”

“Did he ever use the fact that he was your father to command you?”

“Not really, I don’t think.” Jeongin rolls onto his back and looks at the sky. There’s a fluffy, pearl-white cloud directly above them. “He negotiated, never really demanded anything.”

“Then you can say he was your friend. Most fathers are forceful and cling to their authority, are they not?” Seungmin says, and Jeongin can only shrug. That’s how the other men at the village seemed, but he wasn’t their kid and didn’t bother them or their sons or daughters much. He wouldn’t truly know. “That’s what I hear, at least. My father sent us money from working at an inn on some crossroad. I’ve only met him once and he was awkward around me.”

Suddenly, Jeongin feels selfish, for being able to reduce the image of his own father so easily. “I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t be.” He sees Seungmin’s hand move in his peripheral, reaching towards his shoulder, though it retracts quickly. “What was he supposed to do for me, anyways? I’m not like most boys, there was nothing he could pass onto me. Besides, I didn’t need protection either. There’s many guards at the castle.”

He comes to the conclusion that Seungmin is too good to be true. Too optimistic to live under the sky and not be it, physically. 

Even if Jeongin doesn’t deserve him, he thinks Seungmin absolutely deserves a friend. And if he’s chosen Jeongin, who is he to deny him?

“I’ll protect you here.” Jeongin rolls over onto his other side, coming close to Seungmin’s knees. There’s a finely carved can off to the side of his thighs. He looks up, and sees his friend smiling. “If you want, tomorrow I can show you archery. Even if you can’t do it yourself…” 

“Sure, I’d love to watch.” Seungmin smiles, full and joyously. His teeth gleam like the moon over the water. “And I’d love to have you protect me, Jeongin.”

His hand lifts again, and almost draws back, but Jeongin nods and closes his eyes.

Finger gently rests on his scalp, and languidly scratch behind his ears. No one other than his mother has ever done this, and not since he was little. It’s… nice. Calming like the water.

The clouds above shift, and reflections appear in the water. A fox curls up for a nap, and a frog joins in, sitting between its ears.

* * *

A week later, Jeongin leaves the sleeping quarters early in the morning, tells the lookouts where he’s going, and heads for the Golden Summit.

The scenery isn’t too different from inside the walls. Endless,  _ endless _ golden leaves and tall trees. Perpetual autumn under a clear sky, but the squirrels and birds are easier to find. Clusters of mushrooms and flowers lie at the base of trees, the same kinds that he sees Hyojin trading the merchants for new clothes and charms.

He recognizes a few clusters of irises, and camellias from time to time. They don’t stand out as much as they did in the green fields, and the mushrooms are practically invisible. If it weren’t for the stems that crawl up to the petals, he might think that the colour green vanished entirely with his past life. There isn’t much to reassure him that anything’s left, that the world hasn’t been swallowed entirely by the sun’s warm light.

When Jeongin looks back and can’t see the walls of the temple grounds anymore, he hears a pitchy whine. Looking forward again, a fox emerges from a hole at the base of a tree, scattering the pile of leaves that hid it.

Shaking off the dirt and plants, it stares up at Jeongin expectantly, fluffy tail swishing back and forth.

“Do you have a name?” he asks. It rolls onto its back, letting out a cute giggle-like noise, and he can tell it’s a female. Her tail continues to wag as she sits up again. “Oh, really? That’s a lovely name. Can I call you little one?”

She jumps towards him and trills, before running off in the opposite direction. Further ahead, she stops and looks back towards him. So Jeongin does what he always has, and follows the fox.

When he was a child, he once got lost in the forest looking for a bouquet of flowers to bring for one of the elderly ladies, Chiyo, since it was her birthday. His mother loves to tell the story to everyone they meet, because she remembers how Jeongin, missing for the entire day, emerged from the forest just before sundown. There were flowers clutched in his hand, the most beautiful camellias, and a satisfied-looking fox trotting beside him.

At the time, Jeongin didn’t know why Chiyo cried with a smile as he handed her the flowers, or why the village held a festival a week later, when they never used to have a celebration at that time. It wasn’t until he neared his teen years that his father explained how foxes were messengers of Inari. For the fox to guide Jeongin, a child who could offer it nothing, all the way home, was a clear sign that he, and the village subsequently, had a blessing of Inari upon them.

He’s not sure if he believes that, anymore. But the Mongols trampled their shrines and slaughtered sacred animals, perhaps the gods were weakening from the sacrilege, without much anyone could do about it.

The fox stops in front of a Torii--beyond it, a staircase leading up a hill-sized rocky mountain. Her tiny paws pad over to him, and she whines while staring at his eyes directly.

Smiling, he kneels down and strokes her blazing fur. She keens, nuzzling his palm as her tail flings around. A happy little one. When he stops and she runs off, it’s with bounding leaps and pleasant trills that echo into the forest. He’s not sure if his closeness to the tricky creatures is a sign of a blessing, or a blessing in and of itself. 

Deep breath in, deep breath out. It’s been a while since he’s visited a shrine alone. He’s wearing his hitatare for this, the warm, deep orange pattern, foxlike, to help him blend in with the trees if any of the army passes through. He’d much rather another colour; this is all he has. 

As he passes through the Torii, he wonders if the Mongols will come to claim this shrine eventually, too. Or if they’ll remain on the outside of this sanctuary. Based on how they’ve performed thus far, Jeongin doesn’t think they have any intent on respecting anything they hold dear here. Evil intent is all they know, conquer and leave nothing behind to weep for. No castes or codes of honor.

It makes sense why they’d come to a small island like this. Not much happens. The walk up to the shrine at the summit is peaceful, much like everyday life. There was the rebellion in the year Jeongin was born, of course. Aside from that, he’s never lived through anything dramatic. Only heard tales of battles. 

Until now.

The wooden bridge is rickety and old, but the protection charm is pulled taught on Jeongin’s waist, so he does his best to not panic as he crosses it. The shrine maidens at the temple would have it fixed if it were an issue. When he looks down towards the ground, he sees the fox on her hind legs, pawing up towards him. Over the howl of the breeze, he can hear her whining still. Encouraging him, even though she was too scared to come up with him.

Or maybe there’s another reason, who knows?

Across the bridge is another staircase, winding upwards. Then another bridge, and another staircase. And again, until Jeongin hasn’t even realized how high up he is, and the shrine is right in front of him.

He can see the entire southern sector of the island. The forests, the hills, all beyond the Golden Forest. The sky, and the sea…  _ everything _ . Tall, wide pillars of ominous black smoke where villages have recently fallen. Stark against the endless expanse of blue and green bursting from the seams of yellow dotting the edges of his sight. So stark he doesn’t even see the shrine when he runs to stand at its side, dangerously close to the edge of the rocks, eyes blown at the horror.

Maybe this is why the fox didn’t come with him. On the ground, everything seemed okay. Calm. Like it was all a passing thing. But here, he can see where people are dying, homes are burning, families ripped apart and taken by strangers in strange armor with thick voices.

Is that what his village looked like, from here?

The tears come without him wanting them to. He remembers what that black smoke smells like, what it tastes like, how the heat reached him even as him and his mother fled, the screams, his father-

“-It will be okay, soon.”

Jeongin gasps, whipping his head around and reaching for his short sword through the slit under where his cord ties off.. He doesn’t hesitate to point it at the stranger, whose voice rumbles deep like thunder.

A very strange-looking stranger, as it seems.

His skin is warmer, and not in the way that labourers’ skin tends to be, not developed over long days beneath the sun. It’s a born-in warmth. Strange brown dots, similar to moles but less prominent, make his face multi-colour, and his hair is as light as Jeongin’s skin is. Even his eyebrows are unusual, angular and thick, reminiscent of wet soil rather than sparse black. His features aren’t Mongolian, but they’re not entirely native to this island, either. 

“Who are you?” Jeongin demands, trembling. 

He’s even dressed strangely, with practically his entire chest on display through his robe. It’s hard to not stare at first, until he’s flashed a blinding smile.

“Felix,” the stranger says, in an odd tone. He laughs when Jeongin looks visibly confused. “It’s a name from a faraway place. You can call me something else, if you want. Here, I’ll write it in katakana for you.”

He uses a smaller rock to scratch it onto a larger one, while Jeongin slowly sheathes his blade. Dimly, he remembers that this is sacred ground and Felix shouldn’t be carving his name anywhere near the shrine, it’s just difficult to question someone so incredibly weird. Even in katakana, the name looks strange and foreign.

“Anyways, why are you here?” Felix asks, standing and reaching for Jeongin’s hand to pull him up too. His grasp is firm and gentle, and his hands much smaller than his voice would have someone assuming. When he bends over, Jeongin can see all the way down to his hips where his sash ties off. “Do you need a new omamori?” 

“I should be asking why you’re here.” As soon as he’s on his feet, Jeongin yanks his hand away and averts his eyes. He’s seen naked people before, there’s no reason for him to be so affected, yet his entire face is heating up. At least Felix doesn’t look surprised, or bothered. “You’re clearly not from here.”

It’s not as though it’s wrong to like boys, even if he can’t have children with them. It’s just… well, Jeongin has never had anyone to like, really. Between Seungmin and Felix, he feels overwhelmed. He’s not used to his body feeling so hot, even with the breeze at the summit being forced and cold. Felix’s touch itself felt like a stinging sunburn.

Jeongin’s lucky he’s wearing two layers, because he’s certain the flush goes all the way down his chest. 

“But I’m meant to be here anyways,” the stranger says and turns around, skipping over to the front of the shrine where he kneels. “I’m looking after the shrine right now.”

Against his better judgement, Jeongin follows and kneels next to him. Prayer is always a calming, grounding moment for him, but Felix looks like he’s about to fling himself off the edge of the rock and sprout wings. “Then why are you carving your name onto rocks, and why are you dressed like  _ that? _ ”

“Because I can dress how I want to, and it’s just a rock.” He’s like Seungmin in the way he talks, except more untamed and wild. Seungmin cares about what he says, Felix doesn’t seem to think it matters. Either way, Jeongin wonders if he’s become a magnet for sunny personalities as of lately. “I didn’t scratch my name onto the shrine itself. Amaterasu won’t care, trust me. The gods aren’t as picky as people make them seem.”

His words are so foreign, Jeongin can’t do much other than blink at him. “You speak very informally,” he blurts.

“I do a lot of things informally. Formality is a weird concept, I think we should all relax with each other.” Felix tilts his head back and smirks towards Jeongin, fingers dancing along his scarcely-clothed thighs. Rather than igniting a fire, it sends a crackle of electricity up Jeongin’s spine. “How about we pray together, and when we’re done, we visit the hot spring? It’s not too far from here.”

Outside of the safety of the temple, propositions like that sound like death traps. Trips to hot springs are lovely, Jeongin won’t deny. He’s taken trips with his family to Hiyoshi Springs, and whenever he can he escapes to the nearest sight of billowing steam. But coming from a random person alone is uncomfortable, let alone someone who couldn’t more obviously be a foreigner in Jeongin’s view.

“How do I know you’re not leading me into a Mongol trap?” Jeongin narrows his eyes, trying to find dishonesty in the stranger’s expression. He looks towards the smoke that he’d nearly forgotten about in his shock, and feels delicate fear creeping up his throat.

To his credit, Felix doesn’t look offended. He looks like he expected a hostile response, and uses another bright grin to disarm Jeongin. Unfortunately, it’s a very believable and friendly smile.

“You’re a random boy my age that I just happened to meet up here. If I were leading someone into a trap, it would matter which person I find.” Felix turns back to the shrine, clasps his hands together, and closes his eyes. Never has there been a person who looks so excited to pray to a deity that they speak about with a lack of reverence entirely. “Now come on, let’s pray to the sun goddess. It’ll make her happy.”

He might be odd, but Jeongin finds himself joining Felix in prayer anyways.

It’s difficult to try and forget the backdrop of dark pillars rising from the distant ground. Jeongin tries, focuses on expressing his gratitude for the sun and giving her his utmost attention. His mind just likes to betray him. 

The sun is a ball of fire, fire is ravaging his home, his home is falling apart and he’s praying with some barely-clothed person he’s pretty sure isn’t even from here-

“You’re not in a good state to pray today, are you?” Felix’s deep timbre cuts through his thoughts. “Nevermind, then. It’s okay, she’ll understand. You’re scared of the smoke, aren’t you? Let’s just go to the hot spring, steam is much calmer.”

_ “What?” _ Jeongin scrambles to follow Felix, who stands and nonchalantly makes his way towards the descending path. “We can’t just- we’re  _ praying! _ This is so disrespectful!”

“You weren’t praying, you were kneeling and internally panicking.” The boy’s hands tuck together behind his back, with the poise of a lord calmly treading through his garden. “You’re going to have to get used to seeing the smoke or ignoring it better before you can pray.”

Distantly, Jeongin realizes he’s just as bad as Felix for abandoning his prayer. He can’t really remember what he was trying to pray for, though. “How do you even know that’s what I was thinking about?”

“Someone is worried about you because of it,” the boy says vaguely. He glances towards Jeongin at his side, and smiles. “Also, it’s very obvious. You didn’t even see me sitting on the other side of the shrine when you came up because you were so shocked.”

Jeongin knows his mom worries about him, and knows that Seungmin does too. But Felix shouldn’t have any way of knowing who they are. It makes his stomach churn harshly. “You’re cryptic,” he says.

The grin on Felix’s face only widens. “For now.” 

Jeongin doesn’t like where this seems to be going. He follows Felix anyways, out of curiosity.

“There’s a hot spring just around the hill from the first Torii,” the strange boy skips down a couple of steps with his arms outstretched, like an oriole’s wings. “You can see it from the shrine, but only if you stand at the very edge of the rocks and look down. But if you do it’s very pretty, you can see the red maple leaves through the steam.”

“Were you scared of falling when you looked?” Jeongin asks.

“When I first looked, yeah,” he hums. The bridge groans beneath them when they step on. He doesn’t look bothered or concerned by it. “But now I’m not scared of falling from anywhere. Hey, have you been to Arrow Peak shrine, further south? The one dedicated to Inari?”

A strange change of topic. Jeongin won’t question it, though. Maybe Felix has a fear of heights and doesn’t like to admit it. That’s not something he’ll judge him for.

“Once, when I was a kid,” he answers. The memory is vivid, of him and his father staring from the highest point at the horizon. It was beautiful, a great tree unfurling from the rock and over the cliff’s edge. He wanted to climb it; a part of him still does. “My village is further north so we just had our own small shrine. And there were many foxes, so we didn’t need to make as many trips to the south to pray.”

“I grew up with a man in the middle of Kashine Forest, so I didn’t really pray until he passed away and I left,” Felix adds with a shrug. It makes sense, then, why the formalities of prayer are a little lost on him. But that’s one explanation for a plethora of things that aren’t adding up well in his head. “He was an old samurai. At least, that’s what he told me.”

Jeongin nearly stops at the admission, eyes reflexively widening. He’d heard stories, of course. Having never known a samurai, it seemed distant. And yet...

“Oh,” he deadpans, unintentionally. His stomach sinks a little. “Oh, so, were you two…?”

“No,  _ no! _ He was like a father, not a mentor.” Felix laughs bashfully, and Jeongin isn’t sure why his assumption being wrong makes all the tension drain from his shoulders. “He wasn’t a samurai any longer, anyway. The most I got was the talk about men and women and all that, you know?”

“Ah, okay,” he laughs too, awkwardly. It’s nice to know, for some reason, that Felix isn’t any more experienced than he is. “Do you know why he gave you a foreign name? Felix is a little weird-sounding, no offense.”

The end of the path comes more quickly than it did on the ascent, Jeongin notes as they pass back through the first Torii. It’s still early, the sun still not floating directly overhead yet. Felix grabs his wrist and leads him around towards the side of the rock eagerly. He even begins to jog, making Jeongin stumble as he tries to keep up.

“No worries. He met a woman from the west one day when he travelled to the continent with the shogun. He decided he loved her, and she had a son named Felix. So when he came back, he vowed that if he ever had a son, he would name him Felix.” He tells the story as though he had to sit through it a million times, much like Jeongin had to when his father recounted how him and his mother met. Every year on their anniversary, until it carved itself into Jeongin’s permanent memory. “He never married, but one day, after retiring as a warrior and leaving to live in the woods, a fox beckoned him over to its den. And there I was! All swaddled up. Now here we are.”

Before he can say anything, a red maple tree comes into view, and both boys gasp and break out into a run towards the rising steam. 

It seems like so long ago that Jeongin’s legs have moved this fast, despite running from Seungmin not long ago. Running through nature, like he’s free--it’s been what, over a month now? Maybe longer. Ever since the news of the Mongolian arrival reached their small settlement, at the very least. He ran home for dinner at the sight of the sunset, he thinks. Was that really the last time?

Remembering is hard, especially when Felix quickly and nonchalantly undoes his sash slips out of his thin clothes, leaving the scarlet fabric folded neatly over one of the rocks. Before Jeongin can be caught staring--at his abdomen and slightly lower than that--he makes hasty work of his own layers.

The fact that they’re built similarly makes it less embarrassing, but Jeongin’s still thankful that Felix closes his eyes when he slides into the hot water, and doesn’t open them until they’re both submerged from the chest-down. 

Jeongin sighs, dipping even lower. The heat pulls the tension from his shoulders away in thick clumps, straight through every pore. Surrounded by trees and steam, the stress melts entirely. Serenity, at its core. He wonders, if he were someone like Seungmin, would he be able to write a haiku about this feeling?

“They say foxes are divine messengers. I was once told that a baby abandoned near a fox den will always survive, because Inari is the goddess of fertility and can’t bear to see a child die,” he says once Felix’s eyes open and meet his own. They look like planets, amidst the star-like marks speckled on his cheekbones. “I’ve always been close with foxes, they’re kind creatures.”

“You look like one, you know” Felix giggles. He swims over to Jeongin's side and rests next to him, their thighs nearly touching. Jeongin tries his absolute hardest to not immediately panic.Thankfully the water is cloudy, so his eyes naturally don’t wander downward. “If you weren’t so scared of things, I might think you’re a yokai.”

“I get that a lot. When my family and I visited Hiyoshi Springs one year, the villagers spoiled me rotten because they thought I was a kitsune,” he chuckles, blushing again from both the heat of the water and Felix’s eyes staring directly into what feels like his soul. “Apparently there were foxes watching from the cliffs when we rode in. They love me, I don’t know why.”

Suddenly, Felix’s eyes shift to the side, and he gestures his chin upward. “Like that one?”

When Jeongin looks over, the female fox from earlier is sitting next to the maple. She watches them from behind the leaves periodically falling into the water, knowingly.

“Oh, she’s still here.” Jeongin waves towards her, and she cocks her head to the side before turning around and running back towards the forest. Maybe she’s scared of Felix, or just doesn’t care. “She helped me find the Torii to the shrine. She’s very sweet.”

“You must be blessed,” Felix comments off-handedly. The way he continues to look at Jeongin feels like it’s not so casual, though it’s hard to tell why exactly. “To look like a fox and have them adore you.”

“The other villagers used to say that, too.” Jeongin remembers his and Seungmin’s conversation last week, and smiles at the familiarity. “A boy named Seungmin at the temple said I might be a descendant of Inari.”

Felix’s eyes brighten at this, almost mischievously. Almost wolf-like, perking up at a pleasant sound. “And what if you are?” he asks, not concealing his sudden excitement. “What would you do, knowing that?”

“I don’t know, I would think I have a destiny to fulfill? That would be scary,” Jeongin says with a shrug. He shifts to the other side, the tiniest bit, not liking the unsettling feeling that rises in his stomach. He tells himself Felix is just a bright and excitable person, but it feels like a lie. 

“Being descended from a god doesn’t mean you’re obligated to do anything.” Felix raises his arms and leans back comfortably, looking upwards at the close yet distant sky. “I think, maybe the gods just need physical bodies to keep themselves tied to us. If it happens to be you, it just means you’ll be kept safe. You don’t need to earn or prove it.”

Confident. Felix walks around scarcely-clothed, unaffected by suspiciously old bridges and heights, and speaks of the gods as if he knows everything about them. Like he knows them personally. His name is strange, he has off-coloured dots all across his face and hair the colour of pampas grass.

He’s nothing like anyone else on this island, yet he acts like there’s nowhere else he belongs. Jeongin doesn’t know if he wants to know more, or if he wants to run far, far away from this person. The thing about foxes, is that no matter how timid they are, they are endlessly curious. 

It might turn out to be a fatal flaw, but Jeongin lives in fatal times regardless. Curiosity wins, in the end.

“You make it sound like you know that for certain,” he says, his gaze shifting to Felix’s lips. They’re red like the maple tree, like his clothes, like his demeanor. Everything about him seems ablaze. “Why?”

Felix, ever observant, offers a smirk.

“It’s just a feeling I have.”

* * *

“You have great form, Jeongin,” Seungmin remarks. “You might be a great samurai.”

Jeongin looks down to his side, where he kneels on a straw mat next to the barrel of arrows. His posture is immaculate. It’s funny, how he manages to look so mature and yet childish all the same. From this angle it’s even more obvious how round and soft his facial features are. 

“How would you know that?” Jeongin raises a brow at him, unused to blatant admiration.

“He’s been watching me teach ever since he came here,” Minho says from somewhere behind Jeongin. He’d smiled when the younger boy finally came for lessons, like he’d been waiting all this time. “I’m sure he’s picked up a few things. You should straighten your back just a little bit more, and fix your fingers--there! Perfect.”

A breeze sweeps through the temple grounds, lifting hair and cloth alike. The leaves shift across the ground and in the distance, Jeongin can hear a hammer clamoring against metal. There’s not much bustle today, the clouds keeping everyone’s voices hushed and contained. The clanging of metal is clearer like this, and rhythmic. Steady, easy to follow.

His shoulder tense and release in a second, the moment he shoots towards the target.

Straight into the eye.

“Do you think you could do that, but quicker?” Minho asks, handing Jeongin a fresh arrow from the side. Seungmin grabs one too, analyzing the head’s sharpness. They’re rather rustic, slightly blunt, but effective all the same.

“I think I can,” he says, and tries.

It’s difficult, he’s not sure how someone can master it at all, but with only a second between the pull and release, he manages to nail one of the inner rings. Not his finest, but far from the worst.

“You said you haven’t practiced since you got here?” Minho takes the bow from him and eases it onto the rack of similar ones next to the arrows. Jeongin nods. “That’s surprising, you’re very adept.” 

A total of fifteen shots, five of which still lay embedded in the target. None of them breach the outer half of the rings. Again, not his finest, but far from the worst. It’s been weeks since he’s picked up a bow, or done anything rigorous to keep the strength in his biceps to handle the taut string. 

For someone so out of practice, he supposes he’s not so bad.

“If you practice every day you might be able to hit the center every time,” Minho says encouragingly. He smiles, and looks like a satisfied cat. “I find it’s a good way to get your mind off things and release stress, too. You know, with the times being rough.”

“I agree,” Seungmin adds, charming and bright as ever. “There’s a spot just outside the walls where I like to write, if you set a target out there we can practice together.”

“Are you sure you should be going outside the walls?” Jeongin sits in front of Seungmin, without a mat. He reaches out and adjusts the other boy’s dobuku, pulling it out from where it folded in on itself. “You can’t run if something comes.”

“Well if you go with me, you could always carry me,” Seungmin argues. He even pouts, which is unreasonably cute and persuasive. “And you’ll have your bow, and the blade you always have.”

“You carry a blade?” Minho interjects suddenly. He appears next to Jeongin, leaning in a little too close too soon.

It makes him recoil slightly as he pulls the weapon out from where it’s strapped to his thigh below his robe. “Always, just in case. My father gave it to me.”

The sheath is a beautiful and deep blue, the same colour as the evening sky painted over with clouds that match the black hilt, with accented iron bands. It was his father’s gift to him two years ago, when he came of age. Not long ago, but still an eternity.

Seungmin gasps and holds his hands out, smiling prettily when Jeongin lets him hold it. “It’s beautiful.”

Minho hums in agreement and makes no attempt to touch it. He’s hard to gauge--one moment he’s respectful and the other he leans in like a hungry snake. Jeongin gets the sense that he calculates every move he makes based on previous reactions, and can’t place whether that’s disturbingly thoughtful or genuinely calming. It’s not unpleasant, though. Minho seems like a nice enough person to tolerate.

“And since you’ll be armed, I don’t think there’s any harm in going just outside the wall.” Seungmin returns the blade and clasps his hands together, practically bouncing on his knees. “You said you’d protect me, right? So it’s fine.”

“You’re a menace.” Jeongin slips the blade back into the ribbon that holds it in place. He sighs heavily as he reclines, and realizes there’s no use trying to refuse Seungmin’s bright smile; it exists to be heeded. “Fine, we can go tomorrow.”

With the way Seungmin grins and claps, you would think he’s watching a performance.

He looks beautiful, beneath the canary-coloured leaves that rain down. The more Jeongin looks at him, the more he’s convinced Seungmin was a member of nobility, and not the son of a servant. From the way he always carries his mat tucked under his arm along with his poetry book to his constant slight-smile. He looks important, but not pompous or concerned with authority. Maybe it’s just from virtue of living in the castle, maybe it’s just how he was naturally born to be.

“You look like the son of a Jito,” Jeongin tells him, hiding his blush with his overgrown bangs as they set themselves up in a shaded area against the stone wall.

“Oh, thank you.” Despite their friendship, Seungmin still gives Jeongin a small bow in thanks when he sets down his mat and cane for him. “That’s what the shrine maidens said when I first came here.”

They couldn’t have more than a week of time between their arrivals, really. The Ariake prefecture was doomed the moment the Jito and the samurai fell. Even as the air gets colder and days get shorter, Jeongin still feels out of place, while Seungmin has always appeared as though he belongs. Water flows everywhere, constantly, but stray a fox too far from its den, and there are consequences.

He can’t help but glance back towards his new friend while he stabs a small flag at the base of a wide tree some feet away. With the wind growing harsher, he wears even thicker layers than before to protect his small body. He’s a walking sea of white and grey fabric, and needlessly cuter, subsequently.

“Were you sad? When you came here?”Jeongin can’t help but ask. The scene from the top of the shrine crosses his mind, and dread starts to form a black cloud above him. “You act like our island isn’t burning. You know, from the top of the shrine to Amaterasu, you can see huge pillars of smoke where villages are being ravaged. We’re going to be slaughtered, aren’t we? Why are we acting like everything’s fine?”

He doesn’t mean to sound so accusatory, really, and the look across Seungmin’s face makes him feel immediate regret.

“Sorry, I just-” he stutters, but doesn’t know what to say. He resorts to cracking his neck and turning away, pulling his first arrow back against the string. Towards the marked tree. When he fires, he pierces the bark exactly halfway up the trunk.

“...I think we’re just trying to find small happiness where we can,” Seungmin mumbles. Jeongin glances back, and sees him looking contemplatively up at the sky, softly kneading the skin of his thighs. “I can rest my legs here more than I did at the castle, and make art just for myself. I met Minho, I met you, and I get to see beautiful scenery everyday and not just through a window. I’m trying to find happiness in that, to stay strong against our invaders.”

It’s such a Seungmin answer, that brightens the world around them with each word.

Sometimes, Jeongin forgets that Seungmin never got to run free like he did. And he never will, but this might be the closest he’ll ever be to that sensation. But that only makes it more puzzling, how he’s able to see the forest for the trees, and not for the way it is both their protector and their new prison.

“My entire village was burnt to the ground.” Jeongin aims another arrow, and imagines a bandit-like soldier in place of the tree he fires it toward. “My mother and I ran as soon as we heard noise in the forest, but my father stayed behind to wake as many people as possible so they could run before it was too late.”

The arrow pierces dead-center, wounding the wood. He imagines blood leaking from it.

It was dark that night.

They had packed away their things after snuffing out the candlelight, nothing but the vague tinge of moonlight illuminating them. Nothing but shushes and panicked breaths as they clambered out the back window and ran for the hills. He’d been a burden, like a child all over again, tripping over every step while his mother desperately tugged him to run faster. Even more when the sound of soaring flames rose to the sky, brandishing with it screams and accented laughter.

And the screams of his father.

When it comes down to it, they simply abandoned him. Jeongin’s next arrow misses the tree entirely, the bowstring strained under his tensed fingers. It flies into one a little ways behind it instead.

“Before the fire started, we-” he breathes heavily. The next arrow misses too, disappearing off into the woods. A failure. “We heard him scream my mother’s name, and half of mine before they killed him.”

Seungmin is quiet, eerily so. He’s not sure why. He can’t bring himself to look once his eyes start to well up and sting. All he can do is channel that energy into his next shot. And he does--he hits the tree again, but barely. It’s a start. The release of tension with every arrow is a small comfort.

“He taught me how to use the bow. He taught me everything. We- he would take me to the river to get water almost every day. It was routine, like eating dinner, and now suddenly there’s no river and no buckets and no- I just don’t know how I’m supposed to find happiness when everything reminds me of him but nothing’s the same.”

Seungmin hums, still silent until the moment Jeongin turns to look at him. Strangely, his eyes are full of admiration. Maybe a bit of longing. There’s no pity like there is with the other refugees who stared at him when he first arrived.

For the first time since green became gold, Jeongin feels understood.

“Maybe that’s why you should find happiness in everything,” he says. Jeongin wishes he could take the optimism for himself, and try to see what Seungmin’s eyes can. If he’s capable. “Because you see your father in everything, and he made you happy. His spirit is in every arrow you shoot and every drop of water, isn’t it?”

Maybe not understood, but seen. Appreciated, maybe. Seungmin doesn’t live with guilt, though. He can’t. There was nothing he could have done, he’s always been at the whims of those around him. 

But Jeongin had a bow. Jeongin can run as a needle-tailed swift flies, and shoot his arrows like the albatross diving after its prey. He could have done… _ something _ , at least. A distraction. To save his father, and maybe another villager or two. But he stumbled up the hill instead, and only looked down to see the rising smoke when the scent was too acrid to ignore.

“Until I get a sign he’s still here, his spirit left already.” He turns back towards the tree and readies another shot. The more he stares at the bark, the more he sees the faces of the invaders in the grooves of the wood. Anything that splinters from the force of the arrowhead flashes crimson as the sunlight hits. “I should’ve stayed back to get him. We abandoned him without even thinking-”

“You’d both be dead with him if you went for him.” Seungmin says. As if he was there to witness what happened that night. “Even if you reached him before the Mongols, they would have been at your door by the time you’d gathered your things. If you’d tried to fight, they’d outnumber you. But you didn’t, and you’re alive now, so you can carry on for him.”

The thought of Mongols surrounding him--it makes Jeongin shudder. He’s only seen their gleaming armor from afar, shining like teeth in a wicked smile. It hurts to admit, but Seungmin’s likely right. “How are you always so reasonable? And positive?”

“I’m not,” he says plainly. Jeongin looks back at him again, as he shuffles to become more comfortable on his knees, face cast downward and somewhat saddened. “I cried all the way from the castle to the temple. But when I woke up the next day, I met a community. In this gorgeous place, all helping each other.” 

He raises his head again, a soft smile adorning him like a perfectly-fitted hō. “It’s different than the castle was, and I feel free. I lost my home, my family, and some friends… but I gained new ones. I think I might stay here, when this is all over. They take care of me like a son, and I have you and Minho.” His head tilts slightly to the side. “Well, you’ll probably leave, but I’ll remember you whenever I see the foxes, I think.”

“I don’t know where my mother and I will go, honestly.” Jeongin sighs and knocks another arrow, but doesn’t pull it taut or turn yet. The time when he leaves seems like such a non-existent concept. But if they survive this, if they win… He just thinks of Hyojin, and how much he owes her, now. “If I didn’t have her, I’d probably stay with you.”

“I think you’ll go far. Without either of us,” Seungmin chirps. Something strange takes over in his eyes; something like longing.“If the foxes guide you away from her, will you follow?”

The wind shifts, and lifts the ends of Seungmin’s dobuku ever-so-slightly. Jeongin follows the motion--if the foxes led him away, would he go to them? Away from his own mother? If there was something else waiting for him, something greater… Well, the foxes have never led him astray before.

Really, he kind of likes the thought of being freed by them.

“...Yeah, I will,” he says.

Seungmin smiles at him, and the wind settles. Forever gentle. Jeongin really thinks, if times were different, he would run away with Seungmin. To a hut in the woods, somewhere where the fox dens and the rivers run parallel and close to each other. Seungmin could read and write, and Jeongin would hunt for them. Away from duties, gods, samurai…

Peace, maybe.

“I don’t think I was meant to hear any of that, but hi!” 

Seungmin flinches, and Jeongin spins around, pulling the bowstring tight as he aims his arrow right up in the direction of the voice, within the trees not thinking of it’s familiarity before he fires it. 

Their visitor is one step ahead though, and drops down from the branch just as Jeongin releases the arrow. It would have hit them dead-on, but they plummet. A mess of red and blond, crashing down from high-up enough to shatter the bones in their legs. And yet, they land solidly on their feet, one knee to the ground, somehow entirely uninjured.

They look up, and Jeongin softens when he sees it’s just Felix, heart desperately trying to slow down too.

Felix waves at him, but leans to the side to peer at the other boy behind him. When Jeongin turns around, he sees his friend still looking entirely terrified at the strange newcomer. Understandably. “Are you Seungmin? Jeongin told me about you. You said he might be related to Inari, right?”

“Don’t scare us like that,” Jeongin chastises, swatting at his shoulder. The other boy seems to relax, but doesn’t take his scrutinous gaze away from the blond. “But, yeah, this is Seungmin. Seungmin, this is Felix. His name is weird. but I met him at the shrine to the south a few days ago and he’s normal.”

“I was wondering why you didn’t come back, so I thought I’d drop by.” Felix stretches his arms back, revealing a significant portion of his freckled chest beneath his still-scarce clothing. Jeongin has to force his eyes to stay on his face. “You’re talented with the bow,” he says to Jeongin, then turns to the other and grins. “And you seem nice.”

“Thank you, Fe...lix? Felix?” Seungmin sputters over the strange sound all while glaring heavily. “Your hair looks like sand. Are you even from here? Jeongin, I think he might be with the Mongols.”

“He’s not, trust me, he’s just weird,” Jeongin reassures him. He straps his bow onto his back and cracks his neck. “I was going to come by the shrine again tomorrow.”

“And you will, because I’m  _ lonely _ ,” Felix says with a pout. His feet are practically bouncing, despite the fact that they should be broken from the height he fell from. 

Sure, his features are feline-esque, but he isn’t  _ visibly _ a cat. He doesn’t seem to be a yokai, but Jeongin finds himself wary. Hopefully, if he is, there’s no malice.

Suddenly, though, Felix gasps and clasps his hands together loudly. “Do you guys want to go on an adventure?” he asks, voice brimming with sunshine and eyes sparkling. “There’s a lot of edible mushrooms not too far from here, and I want to go pick some.”

Seungmin looks pointedly at Jeongin. “Are you  _ sure _ he’s not-”

“He’s the adopted son of a retired samurai,” he blurts. “Really, he could have done a number on me at the shrine, but he didn’t. He’s kind, I  _ swear _ .”

“ _ And _ I’m really good at martial arts,” Felix adds. He seems barely offended by the constant accusations. “So if the Mongols come, I can fight them too.”

“But Seungmin-” Jeongin remembers his cane, his frail heart, and hesitates. “I don’t think it’s a good idea if he leaves the temple grounds. He’s a little weak, at the moment at least-”

“Oh, my horse is somewhere around here. I’ll call her.” Felix whistles a peculiar melody before either of them can object. Once again, his confidence is enviable. He looks at Seungmin like they’re already best friends. “Have you ridden a horse before, Seungmin?”

The other boy sighs and props himself up on his cane, standing gracefully. “A few times, yes, but someone was always leading it,” he says as he bends over to roll up his mat. “I can only handle it if it’s walking, I’ve only galloped in emergencies and it was dangerous for me.”

“No problem. I can lead so Jeongin can have his bow out.” All of a sudden, Felix’s smile falters. The sound of a horse’s hooves trotting closer takes over, momentarily, before he shyly speaks again. “I mean, if you’re not comfortable you don’t have to come with me, I just think it’ll be fun…”

“I’ll go,” Jeongin offers immediately. His friend looks less certain, though. “Seungmin, I can bring you back if you don’t want to.”

It takes a moment, but after looking between him and Felix, Seungmin shrugs and relaxes his shoulders. “...Jeongin, you’ll protect me, right?” The horse arrives, as white as Seungmin’s clothes. “Then I’ll go.”

The wind lifts some of the leaves off the ground in a low whistle. As Jeongin helps Seungmin climb onto the mare--lovingly named Sora--he remembers when his father first taught him how to ride. How the air rushed past his ears when he first galloped. How he fell off and bruised his back against the rocks when he landed in a stream.

And he thinks Seungmin was right.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Side note, WHY is there not an official Kamakura Period or Mongolian Invasion tag on here??? They're so significant...
> 
> Anyways I can't proofread this I hate my writing too much and I need to take time away from my shit after making it to completely forget it, before I can read it again and not cringe. All I know is that this is, like, excruciatingly soft and gay.


End file.
